This is a critical account of one of the most individual and highly developed genres in German literature. The novella may be defined as a narrative in prose, usually short, dealing with one striking fateful event and distinguished by careful artistry of presentation. The book begins by analyzing the features which mark off the novelle from its relatives, the novel and short story; it then describes the different forms and structures which the novelle has assumed under the great prosaists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In this edition Professor Waidson has extended the account from the period of Thomas Mann's Der Tod in Venedig up to the beginning of the 1960s.

Baron Eduard and his second wife Charlotte enjoy a quiet, humdrum existence in their opulent castle, but when he invites his friend the Captain and she invites her niece Ottilie to stay with them, their lives are turned inside out as both hosts begin to feel attracted to their guests. Using one of the chemistry theories of the time as a metaphor throughout the novel, Goethe juxtaposes social interactions with scientific principles, while illustrating the typically Romantic concern of the individual coming to terms with society. Controversial when first published and still much critically debated today, Goethe's Elective Affinities is an early model for the modern novel.